CIA: We Only Spied On Senate Because They Took Classified Documents That Prove We’re Liars

CIA: We Only Spied On Senate Because They Took Classified Documents That Prove We’re Liars Mike Masnick Tech Dirt March 7, 2014

Earlier this week, we wrote about the accusations that the CIA was spying on Senate staffers on the Senate Intelligence Committee as they were working on a massive $40 million 6,300 pages report condemning the CIA’s torture program. The DOJ is apparently already investigating if the CIA violated computer hacking laws in spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee computers. The issue revolved around a draft of an internal review by the CIA, which apparently corroborates many of the Senate report’s findings — but which the CIA did not hand over to the Senate. This internal report not only support’s the Senate report’s findings, but also shows that the CIA has been lying in response to questions about the terror program.

In response to all of this, it appears that the CIA is attempting, weakly, to spin this as being the Senate staffers’ fault, arguing that the real breach was the fact that the Senate staffers somehow broke the rules in obtaining that internal review. CIA boss John Brennan’s statement hints at the fact that he thinks the real problem was with the way the staffers acted in hinting that an investigation would fault “the legislative” branch (the Senate) rather than the executive (the CIA).

In his statement on Wednesday Brennan hit back in unusually strong terms. “I am deeply dismayed that some members of the Senate have decided to make spurious allegations about CIA actions that are wholly unsupported by the facts,” Brennan said.

“I am very confident that the appropriate authorities reviewing this matter will determine where wrongdoing, if any, occurred in either the executive branch or legislative branch,” Brennan continued, raising a suggestion that the Senate committee itself might have acted improperly.

A further report detailed what he’s talking about. Reporters at McClatchy have revealed that the Senate staffers working on this came across the document, printed it out, and simply walked out of the CIA and over to the Senate with it, and the CIA is furious about that. Then, in a moment of pure stupidity, the CIA appears to have confronted the Senate Intelligence Committee about all of this… directly revealing that they were spying on the Committee staffers.

Several months after the CIA submitted its official response to the committee report, aides discovered in the database of top-secret documents at CIA headquarters a draft of an internal review ordered by former CIA Director Leon Panetta of the materials released to the panel, said the knowledgeable person.

They determined that it showed that the CIA leadership disputed report findings that they knew were corroborated by the so-called Panetta review, said the knowledgeable person.

The aides printed the material, walked out of CIA headquarters with it and took it to Capitol Hill, said the knowledgeable person.

“All this goes back to what is the technical structure here,” said the U.S. official who confirmed the unauthorized removal. “If I was a Senate staffer and I was given access to documents on the system, I would have a laptop that’s cleared. I would be allowed to look at these documents. But with these sorts of things, there’s generally an agreement that you can’t download or take them.”

The CIA discovered the security breach and brought it to the committee’s attention in January, leading to a determination that the agency recorded the staffers’ use of the computers in the high-security research room, and then confirmed the breach by reviewing the usage data, said the knowledgeable person.

There are many more details in the McClatchy report, which I highly recommend reading. And, yes, perhaps there’s an argument that Senate staffers weren’t supposed to take such documents, but the CIA trying to spin this by saying it was those staffers who were engaged in “wrongdoing” is almost certainly going to fall flat with Congress. After all, the intelligence committee is charged with oversight of the CIA, not the other way around. “You stole the documents we were hiding from you which proved we were lying, so we spied on you to find out how you did that” is not, exactly, the kind of argument that too many people are going to find compelling.

Still, the latest is that the CIA has successfully convinced the DOJ to have the FBI kick off an investigation of the Senate staffers, rather than of the CIA breaking the law and spying on their overseers.

Of course, the CIA may still have one advantage on its side: there are still some in Congress who are so supportive of the intelligence community itself that even they will make excuses for the CIA spying on their own staff. At least that seems to be the response from Senate Intelligence vice chair Senator Saxby Chambliss, one of the most ardent defenders of the intelligence community he’s supposed to be watching over. When asked about all of this, he seemed to be a lot more concerned about the staffers supposedly taking “classified” documents than about the CIA spying on those staffers: “I have no comment. You should talk to those folks that are giving away classified information and get their opinion,” Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said when asked about the alleged intrusions.

Homeland Security Used Intercepted Emails To Quiz Woman About Her Sex Life Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com March 7, 2014

How is the DHS obtaining private communications?

A senior lecturer at Indiana University was confronted by Department of Homeland Security officials after the federal agency obtained copies of her emails and began quizzing her about the details of her sex life. The ACLU is filing a lawsuit on behalf of Christine Von Der Haar after she was detained by Customs and Border Patrol at at Indianapolis International Airport during an incident in 2012.

The sociology professor traveled to the airport merely to help her friend pick up some computer parts that had been shipped separately. Greek national Dimitris Papatheodoropoulos had already arrived in the country under a valid business visa which allowed him to enter and leave the United States for a period of 10 years.

Both Von Der Haar and Papatheodoropoulos were detained by DHS officers and bombarded with questions about their private lives, including whether they had shared sexual relations, with feds alleging that the two secretly conspired so that Papatheodoropoulos could stay in the country illegally.

“Given that Mr. Papatheodoropoulos had retained his hard drive that contained the emails, the only way that the Customs and Border Protection Agents could have reviewed the emails is for someone to have surreptitiously monitored the communications between Dr. Von Der Haar and Mr. Papatheodoropoulos and reported those communications to the agents questioning her,” states the lawsuit. “Defendant Lieba admitted that employees of the United States had read email communications between Dr. Von Der Haar and Mr. Papatheodoropoulos.”

Customs and Border Protection seized Papatheodoropoulos’ passport and commenced proceedings to remove him from the country, claiming he had misrepresented his intentions. After Papatheodoropoulos consulted with lawyers and the Greek Consulate in Chicago, the proceedings were halted and his

passport was returned. Papatheodoropoulos left the country of his own volition in August 2012. “CBP officers grossly exceeded their jurisdiction. Dr. Dr. Von Der Haar’s US citizenship was never questioned; she wasn’t trying to enter, leave, or ship and goods in or out of the country; and she was never accused of any crime. In general, immigration (as distinct from customs) offenses are handled by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Border Patrol, not CBP. We’re curious what basis CBP will claim for its officers’ authority to detain and interrogate Dr. Dr. Von Der Haar or obtain her email,” asks Papers Please.

Either the DHS is obtaining Americans’ emails via their own undeclared (and illegal) snoop program, or they are being aided by the National Security Agency or some other government entity.

This case is not the only example of the DHS harassing travelers over personal information that the feds have no business or legal justification to know.

Last year we reported on the case of a Canadian woman was turned away by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent as a result of being hospitalized for a mental illness a year previously.

50-year-old Ellen Richardson was barred from traveling to New York City after she was told that “system checks” had found she “had a medical episode in June 2012” and that because of this “mental illness episode” she would be required to undergo medical evaluation by DHS-approved doctors before being accepted.

Special Report: Secret Spy Link Between Fusion Centers And Private Sector Exposed Infowars.com March 7, 2014

Local law enforcement agencies across the country are at this very moment employing high-tech control grid surveillance technology in purported efforts to fight crime. The out-of-control spying of the American people doesn’t make sense considering most US cities are already enjoying a huge drop in violent crime. The truth is police (and private sector businesses) are assisting in the implementation of a total surveillance panopticon meant to keep the American public under control.Secret Spy Link between Fusion Centers and Private Sector Exposed VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2kd2oQMflk

Mass. Man Charged With Wiretapping For Filming Police In Public Mikael Thalen Infowars.com March 7, 2014

Cell phone footage mysteriously deleted in police custody A man in Fall River, Mass. has been charged with unlawful wiretapping for recording a police officer shouting profanities in public.

During the Jan. 6 encounter, 51-year-old George Thompson overheard officer Thomas Barboza swearing profusely while talking on a cell phone across the street from his home.

“Every other word out of his mouth he was dropping the f-bomb,” Thompson told WPRI 12.

Seeing Barboza continue to swear as others walked through his neighborhood, Thomas says he then asked the officer to refrain from using foul language.

“He said, ‘Why don’t you shut the f up and mind your f’ing business?’” Thomas said.

As the officer continued his conversation, Thompson pulled out his cell phone and began recording Barboza’s unprofessional behavior.

Noticing the cell phone camera, Barboza immediately stopped what he was doing and ran onto Thompson’s front porch before placing him in handcuffs.

“He comes running up the stairs to me, looks right into the camera and he said, ‘You f’ing welfare bum, I’m arresting you,’” Thompson explained.

According to police documents, Thompson, who spent the night in jail, received a resisting arrest charge on top of the wiretapping charge as well.

Fall River Police Chief Daniel Racine was quick to defend the officer’s actions, claiming Thompson had violated the law by “secretively” recording Barboza.

“I think we all have our basic rights and I think people should not record others surreptitiously or secretively,” Racine said.

According to Mass. state law, it is a crime to audio record anyone, even public officials, without them knowing. Many consider the law null and void given the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the right to film police in public, who have no expectation of privacy just like the general citizenry.

According to Racine, Officer Barboza did admit to swearing while on the phone and received a one day suspension for his conduct.

While Barboza’s police report claims Thompson was attempting to film secretly, Thompson outright denies the claim and says he had his arm completely outstretched as he filmed. Unfortunately, the cell phone footage was mysteriously deleted in police custody two days after the incident.

Racine alluded to the fact that he believed Thompson remotely deleted the cell phone footage despite Thompson never denying that he filmed in the first place. Racine also threatened felony charges to the responsible party while claiming any officer involved would lose their job.

“I wanted the police to see it, I wanted everybody in the city to see it,” Thompson said.

As countless police departments across the country engage in massive and unconstitutional surveillance of innocent people, many citizens attempting to legally film police are being met with violence.

Just last month, a young man in Maryland was harassed and assaulted by police for filming an arrest.

Despite being among a large crowd of people, the man was specifically targeted and told he had “lost” his First Amendment for daring to document the officers’ actions.

One week prior, a Florida woman was assaulted as well for trying to legally record her own traffic stop.

After being forced to spend the night in jail, officers dropped all charges and let her go despite telling her initially that her actions were illegal.

That same month, a man in New York was assaulted and arrested for filming a police encounter from more than 30 feet away. The offending officer’s claims were soon found to be false after the man’s footage, which the officer had deleted, was recovered from the phone.

Massachusetts man arrested after recording police officer in street VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn73Yw7vVFw

INFOWARS.COM BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND